


The Divide

by TitaniumScorpion



Category: Ghost - Mystery Skulls (Music Video)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 18:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3820645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TitaniumScorpion/pseuds/TitaniumScorpion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A second-person fic about ghost problems. Lewis and Arthur are angry at each other like 99% of the time and need to find a way to stop doing that, so that happens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Divide

**Author's Note:**

> TBH I FORGOT TO POST THIS  
> people on tumblr seemed to like it so ay

Most of the time it’s only too easy for you to stay up far, far too late and only realize it when the crack of dawn pours in through the windows of the third-floor apartment. Your consciousness has shifted, you’ve known as much for a long time now, but even the dead need to rest; keeping yourself together through sheer force of will is an enormous drain on your energy that you’re still learning how best to manipulate. The problem of this is that when nothing particularly interesting happens, you tend to just skip over the filler moments. Maybe it’s whatever your equivalent of a brain is preparing to store millennia of memories, or maybe it’s just you being a scatterbrain, but you don’t realize you forgot to actually sleep until Vivi puts her hand on your shoulder. Well, more correctly, in, since you’re not focusing on being solid. 

Her face is a worried but familiar little pout. “You didn’t rest again, did you?” 

You do your best to shift as soon as you’re in the moment, but you know she’s seen your bones countless times before. You think she could maybe even see them before the fall, so acute was her way of looking right through a person. She pulls her hand out of the space you should be occupying and you solidify yourself, letting her cup your face in soft hands, feeling smooth skin where there’s usually nothing but the gaping void where a jawbone should be and relaxing slightly. 

“No, I didn’t,” you admit softly. “Wish I could recharge when I’m spaced out like that, but I actually have to dematerialize.” 

“Idle a car and you’ll run the engine down.” She straightens, crossing her arms and sighing, shaking her head softly at the sight of you spread out on the living room couch. “Look, Lew, we have a wonderful apartment, and I feel really lucky that between Arthur selling all those gadgets of his and my latest promotion we have enough to hold it down. But the living room is for living.” She catches the look on your face and colours, pressing a hand to her mouth. “I didn’t mean it like that!” 

“I know. It doesn’t usually hurt when you say that kind of thing. Go on,” you say softly, wondering why exactly that one felt like a shot through the heart. 

“A-anyway, what I meant to say before I so wonderfully fell over my words as gracefully as I handle most staircases…” She presses a hand to her forehead and rubs her temples, squinting her eyes in a way you know by now as indicative of a headache already beginning to form. “I’ve told you… I dunno, a lot of times, that I’m never going to get used to you if we don’t try to go back to normal. You can sleep with me, fire butt. You’re warm.” 

 

There’s a sadness in her eyes that didn’t used to be there, and you almost long for the confusion of the gap in her memory, as comforting as it was. All you’d wanted was for her not to hurt, your last breathing memory the sight of her face innocent and confused as you fell towards the jagged jaw of stalagmites Snakemouth Cave was so cleverly named for. And ever since whatever the hell brought you to the Peppers’ doorstep, you’d always been able to… change things. Glasses cracked when you were upset, the lights would flicker the first hundred times or so that Vivi kissed you, people knew how you were feeling even when your tongue didn’t work- but it was never something you were very good at. You didn’t even want to acknowledge it until the most important person in the world watched you die horribly, and then all it was was a wish: 

 

Please. If there’s anyone out there, don’t let her remember this. 

 

But instead, she didn’t remember anything. It wasn’t just the physical sense of you that left that night, not for Vivi. It was all of you. Almost four precious years of memories, from the day you saw her swimming in her sweater and had to get your dad to read the menu for her, not because you were scared for once in your life, but because she was so damn beautiful you didn’t know how to speak when she turned her half-functional gaze on you. 

 

And even now that the memories are coming back, you can tell they still don’t make sense to her. You can tell that she doesn’t look at you as her Lew, her big old strong-arm, her eyes and her refuge. You’re just Lewis, the ghost of some boy she apparently was going to marry, who nowadays is nothing but a sad old pile of bones and fire who tried to kill her best friend. She knows who you are, what you’re meant to be to her, but the connection has changed, and every day you lose a little more hope that it might come back. 

 

You stand, trying to shake off the sudden voracious cloud of doubt for her sake, and follow her to the kitchen of the apartment. Mystery’s laid out in his corner, merrily gnawing away at a chunk of beef femur half as big as he is, and you can’t help but smile. For all that dog’s intelligence, he’s still a dog, and the happy little growls as he slobbers all over the bone make that exceedingly clear. Vivi pours herself a cup of coffee from the automatic brewer and slides into the counter before looking up at you embarrassedly. “Uh, sorry, are you gonna…?”

 

“Of course,” you assure her, smiling gently as you pull down a few mixing bowls and a frying pan. “I like cooking, honestly. It’s what I know. I know it’s weird, but I don’t mind making breakfast at all.” Sometimes you have to gently remind her of things that were just unspoken common knowledge before; she tends to guilt herself for taking your cooking for granted. Now, it’s about all you can do for her. 

 

As you beat the eggs in one bowl and mix together spices, in the glowing, early-morning still, punctuated occasionally by Vivi sipping away at her coffee or Mystery giving a soft whine of happiness, you start to feel normal. Even though you have to pick up the pan with a towel because the copper replacements still aren’t here and the steel hurts you, even though you nearly drop the bowl as you pour out the eggs because you didn’t focus quite hard enough on being solid, the silence and the warmth feel right, familiar, no different than it was a year ago. Maybe she feels it too, her smile just as wide as it always was as she watches you plate her up, her fingers brushing yours as you hand it off to her. 

 

“Whadda we got?” she asks you, the words running together into a little chirp of curiosity. 

 

“French toast with cinnamon and nutmeg, a quick fruit salad I threw together, and a sprig of hemlock,” you say in your most sincere voice, pointing to the green leaf perched atop the pillowy slab of bread. 

 

“Oh, cool,” she deadpans. 

 

“I’m kidding, it’s mint.” 

“How dare you lie to me in this fashion. I am hurt and betrayed, Pepper. I believed your murderous intent whole-heartedly and you have taken such callous advantage of me.” She begins eating, thumbing through one of the catalogs on the table, using one of the spare bills as a reader as she chews absentmindedly. You sit beside her and share the silence; while you can certainly burn off a few calories quite literally, it still takes more trouble than it’s worth to eat very much. Maybe you’ll have a strawberry once she’s gone for the day. 

As you watch her read her frown slowly deepens, the divots in her forehead growing darker until she sets down the catalog, rubbing her forehead with two fingers on each hand. “Jeez, I’m sorry, hon. I really need some Advil. Can you get it for me? It’s the cabinet over the stove. I’d get it, but my head hurts, and also I’m tiny.” 

You nod and get to your feet, crossing the distance from the table to the counter in a single stride, practicing walking and not just letting yourself hover everywhere. Not like it matters when you’re as big as you are, but all the same, it’s important. You’ve never been in this particular cabinet before, sticking to the familiar territory of the fridge and the spice drawer, and what you find trips you up a little. There’s way more pills in here than just Advil, and it strikes you that this must be where Arthur keeps that cocktail of medicine he swallows every morning. 

“What are you doing?” comes a flat voice from behind you, and you and Vivi both turn to see Arthur himself standing in the doorway of the kitchen, his hair mussed and hanging to his shoulders, his brows drawn, the set of his jaw a clear show of betrayal. The silence gapes, even Mystery stopping his gleeful gnawing, the bone giving a sharp crack as it falls limp to the floor below. 

 

Vivi speaks before you do, even though your tongue no longer binds with fear. “It’s okay, Arthur, I asked him to get me some painkillers, I’m getting a headache and I don’t want to go into work like this.” 

 

The blonde pauses, as if trying to evaluate whether or not to take her words at face value, and then sighs, his mismatched shoulders slumping. “Let me do it next time. I know where everything is.” Even though you know you should get out of the cabinet, that he’s clearly uncomfortable, you can’t help but let your eyes flicker over what’s there- sleeping pills, a name you recognize from those greyscale depression commercials, painkillers far stronger than Advil- before you back off and let him have his way with the bottles, silently stepping back to clear enough space in the kitchen for the two of them. God knows they always had enough before you showed up. 

 

He stretches onto his tiptoes, balancing himself with the mechanical arm against the counter as his feet leave the floor and he paws through the medicine, pouring out more doses than you’ve ever seen and finally pulling out a bottle with an almost musical rattle of pills. “Catch, Viv,” he mumbles, and she puts her hands up. 

 

“Augh! Hand-eye coordination!” 

 

“Just teasing.” He slouches over to her, knocking his head against hers affectionately and pressing the bottle into her hands, and it hurts you to see how much easier they mesh now. Before you were the bridge between them, between Arthur’s fumbling nervousness and Vivi’s aggressive confidence, and you know it’s selfish, but- 

 

But they don’t need you anymore. 

 

“Lewis. Food?” he asks you, obviously regretting the fact that he even has to acknowledge you. Part of you wants to be angry. Usually you don’t butt heads quite so badly anymore, even if there is some tension. 

 

“Yeah,” you say, watching him sulkily plate himself up, settling into the chair beside Vivi. There isn’t any space for you at the table- why would there be? You’ve only been back for a month, and no one really knows how to tailor their apartment for a ghost. Hell, you have to hide in the walls when the landlord swings by. It’s a good thing you don’t need to have a closet, that you can just shift whatever clothes you want, otherwise you’d really be screwed. 

 

The discomfort is palpable, practically even visible- the stark difference between the three of you, Vivi in her work clothes, Arthur in a tank and scruffy pajama bottoms, you in the same old outfit you died in- and you feel that if the polarity between them was uninterrupted by you they’d be just fine, but now all the warmth and familiarity is sucked out of the room, leaving nothing but a yawning, staring void between you and them. Mystery awkwardly mouths at his bone, struggling to carry it but having no reason to stay in this hostile mess of emotions. 

 

It was silly of you to think for a moment that things with Vivi were anywhere near normal. Arthur doesn’t ruin anything- he just makes it clear where the flaws are buried. 

 

Vivi shifts uncomfortably and hops out of her seat, setting her dishes in the sink. “Um, well, I’m out, guys. Try not to kill each other, okay?” She gives Arthur’s good arm a little squeeze, prompting him to grunt rather noncommittally, and then makes her way uncertainly over to you. She looks up into your face for a moment, wrapping her hand around your ascot, and for a moment you feel the breath catch in the lungs you lack with how familiar the action is. She tugs it lightly and you bend obediently, feeling far too out of control. 

 

“Have a nice day, Lewis,” she whispers, pressing her lips to your cheek for just a moment, and your eyes slip shut as you try to keep yourself from falling to pieces. No one wants to clean up a pile of bones and empty tears, after all. 

 

And then she’s gone and it’s you and Arthur, him pointedly keeping his back to you as he eats, you standing in the corner feeling something like a coat rack. It isn’t as if you have an excuse to sit down with him, not when you can’t eat. It strikes you that you’ve never seen this much of his back before, the scarification cutting white ribbons across his flesh- considering how sensitive he usually is about anyone seeing anything that wouldn’t normally be covered by a t-shirt, he must really be upset with you. 

 

He finishes and dunks his dishes into the sink as well, running the sink full and splashing a squirt of soap into the water. “I can’t wash these,” he says, holding up his left hand, avoiding your eyes. 

 

“I know,” you say, your voice as flat as his is now. You can feel the darkness welling up in you, prickling in your chest, your mouth tasting like iron. Your ears are ringing, filled with the sound of crashing waves and whispering voices and blood whooshing, but you don’t have veins, you remind yourself. You can’t take a deep breath, you can’t calm your heartbeat, but isn’t that all the more reason to stay collected?

 

“I’m gonna go play Smash 4 for like five hours,” he mutters, turning to leave the kitchen. His shoulder, the bad one, brushes your arm, and you both pause. 

 

“Actually, I was going to go try to sleep. I forgot to last night. I know Vivi said it’s okay if I sleep in her room, but I’d rather stay on the couch.” It isn’t as if it even matters where you are when you retreat into a locket the size of a palm to recharge your batteries, but you can still be disturbed from your rest, and being sat on doesn’t sound like a good way to wake up. 

 

Arthur grits his teeth, fixing you with a glare, and you realize just how much he’s changed. He used to be so scared of conflict, and just about everything for that matter, and while that’s still there his skittishness is less endearing than it was before and more a sad, everpresent reality. He never would have stood up for anything in the past, let alone himself. Now… It’s almost as if he has nothing left to lose. 

 

“Just… stay out of my meds, okay?” 

 

You meet his eyes and something foreign and terrifying rushes through you. You want to hurt him. You want to burn him and watch the flesh melt from his bones, watch the skin blacken and turn to ash. You want to make him suffer like you have, like you continue to do, invisible in your own life. You’re a ghost in too many ways, and it’s his fault. His fault. Make him pay- 

 

“You’re not the only one upset, Arthur,” you say, and your voice is too loud, punctuated by the rattling of ribs. “You’re not the only one hurting. Can you stop acting like this is all about you for five minutes?” 

 

“It is all about me, Lewis!” There’s a flash of yellow and he shoves you backwards- or, at least, he tries. His hands sink right through you, just under the broken blue locket on your chest, and for a moment you both reel, you staggering backwards like you’ve been struck, him tottering between falling right through you and rolling back on his heels. 

 

“It’s all about me, okay? It’s my fault things are like this. It’s my fault that you aren’t even here. It’s my fault that I have to take all those drugs, it’s my fault Vivi doesn’t remember you, it’s my fault that everything broke, and it’s my fault that I can’t let my guard down enough to let you back into our lives. The last time I let down my guard for anyone, this happened, because I was too damn weak.” His chest is heaving, his right arm coming to clasp at his left unconsciously as he stares bullets into your face, his eyes too bright and glimmery. You swallow, feeling your shift flicker out for a moment, your hair lighting and extinguishing itself in the blink of an eye. 

 

It takes you forever to find the words, your voice there but your mind elsewhere. “You want to watch Netflix?” 

 

He looks up at you with tired, distrustful eyes, and even knowing his childhood of being passed from school to school, from relative to relative until Lance gave him some stability, you’ve never seen him look so world-weary. “… Yeah, okay. Game of Thrones?” 

 

“I was thinking How It’s Made.” Arthur’s face lights up, though he turns away as soon as he catches himself on the cusp of a smile. He fakes nonchalant, stretching and folding those mismatched arms behind his head as he ambles through the kitchen. 

 

“I’m gonna brush my teeth first.” You part ways wordlessly, you taking your familiar place on the secondhand couch, Mystery jumping up beside you and laying his head on your leg. You run a hand through that strange poofy mane of his, and Arthur joins you shortly, his hair significantly less of a Nirvana-era grunge mess, honestly looking more like the victim of an electrical storm than anything. But it’s him, and that’s what matters. 

 

When you catch him in the right light it’s clear how much he’s aged. It’s been a year, but the dark circles beneath his eyes are carved in now, the wrinkles on his brow staying even when he’s not frowning. He doesn’t show as many teeth now when he smiles, and in the raking light you can see a webby green cataract of some sort in his left eye. 

 

The breaks are there on both of you, but yours are hidden in fire and illusion. His are bare for the world to see, though he’s attempted to patch them up with the glue of bravado. In the right light, it’s clear where the cracks are. 

 

The episode begins with the roar of traffic, and while you know he’s seen every episode a hundred times he still perks and focuses on the screen, his gaze laserlike. He could probably reverse-engineer a hologram from this four-minute segment on them, if he hasn’t already, and you smile despite yourself. Even broken, he’s still Arthur. Sharp as diamond, quick as lightning. 

 

“I’m sorry for raising my voice. I know you don’t like yelling,” you say at last, when the episode’s nearly over. He lets out a soft scoff, tossing his head slightly. 

 

“Oh, dude, I started it. I don’t even know why I keep you away from my prescriptions, it’s not like you’re gonna sell them on the black market or something. I guess I just don’t like you guys knowing how messed up I am.”  
You let the silence gap between you, because now it doesn’t feel like he’ll drift away. Slowly, you raise an arm, outstretching your fingers towards him, and he looks at them uncertainly. 

 

“What’re you…?” 

 

“Just take it,” you say, a crooked smirk stretching across your face as your eyelids hood with a sort of well-worn amusement. He raises his steel hand cautiously, then wraps his palm with yours, and this time nothing falls through you. You’re there, and so is he. 

 

Everything starts with a step, and with Mystery’s head on your lap, Arthur intently piecing together episodes of some silly machine show as fast as the camera shows them, the early Friday sun filtering through the windows- sitting still on the couch, you think you might have finally put your foot out and not stepped on anyone’s toes.


End file.
